Piken
"'Those are those huge beasts that destroyed the school.'" -Number Six, The Power of Six 'Piken '''were giant, carnivorous Vatborn war beasts created by the Mogadorians. They were released on Lorien during the First Great Expansion, and also later in the war against the Garde. As of [[United As One|''United as One]], it is presumed that the Piken brought to and created on Earth have all died out. Appearance & Traits Piken, like all Vatborn creatures, were not clones, and were bred of different shapes and sizes. The Piken have been depicted differently by several of the Garde. There appear to be bipedal and quadrupedal Piken, depending on how they are bred. During the battle near the lake in The Power of Six, ''Marina described them as resembling giant carnivorous ungulates, with hooves and horns. Number Four described the Piken in ''United as One to be "Hideous as always with their muscular bodies that look like someone crossbred an ox and a gorilla, then added fangs, claws and spiky gray skin." Some of them, such as the creature in Nine's Legacy, was described to have sickly green skin. Sightings The Navigator Lexa arrives at the Loric Museum of Exploration to find Zophie, who mentions that she saw armies of Mogadorians with their war-beasts fighting the Garde. The Fallen Legacies When the Nine Garde Children were fleeing Lorien, Number One witnessed a Garde fighting off a piken with their Legacies as he shouted for them to run. Later it is revealed that Mogadorian children played with a science kit where they made miniature piken out of earthworms, using a smaller dose of the Augmentations. Six's Legacy During Number Six's imprisonment in the Hawks Nest Mountain Base, due to the lack of success in breaking the Charm, the Mogs decided to pit her against a piken. When it attempted to bisect her, it ended up receiving the same bite on itself, equal to how bad it would have injured Six. A Mogadorian attempted to apprehend Six, but she stole his sword and slew the piken. Somehow, she learned that the cavern only allowed for the war-beasts to go into certain parts of the complex, as the Mogs used nerve gas that killed animals. Nine's Legacy Number Nine was captured by the Mogadorians after being betrayed by his human friend Maddy. The Mogs promised to reunite her with her parents, and they put them in a chamber. In a sadistic fashion, they let loose a piken on Maddy and her parents. As Nine was forced to watch in disgust, the Mog who captured him promised that soon, Nine would be down there as well. When John Smith and Sam Goode attacked the base, Nine was freed and used the escaped piken to his advantage, killing many of them after they attacked their Mogadorian captors. I Am Number Four In Kenya, the Mogadorians sent a larger contingent to apprehend Number Three, and brought a piken with them as well to flush out the Loric. Hannu managed to outrun the beast, but was still killed by General Andrakkus Sutekh. Later in Paradise, Ohio, John has visions of Lorien and sees his father Liren cutting down a piken with his Legacy of Sturma. Mogs sent in three piken to accompany the soldiers. They destroyed the school, but were defeated. Six used her Legacy of Sturma to destroy one of them, and John Smith used a Mogadorian dagger to drain the power from another piken before Henri killed it with a shotgun. The third was convinced to fight the Mogadorians by John's Legacy of Anima. The Power of Six When John and Sam were captured by the FBI, a piken apparently broke free from Mogadorian containment and attacked where they were being held. Later a herd of piken was released in Spain to kill Marina, Héctor Ricardo, Crayton, and Ella. They managed to defeat the herd, but Héctor was killed in the fighting, crushed by the hoof of a piken. The Revenge of Seven When the attack on New York began, [[the Anubis|the Anubis]]'' sent down piken into the city. One of them came after John and Sam when they were rescuing survivors from an apartment complex. As it prepared to trample John and the humans around, it was telekinetically pushed by Sam Goode, who had just developed telekinesis, becoming a Human Garde. ''United as One During the attack on the Hawks Nest base, Nine killed one of them while they fought past the first wave of Mogadorians in the mouth of the cave. After the war ended, it was implied that all the piken and other war-beasts on Earth were killed. Trivia * In Estonian mythology, "Piken" is another spelling of Pikne, the Estonian god of lightning. In the Middle Ages, pagan priests made animal sacrifices to Pikne, such as bulls. ** The piken in The Lorien Legacies ''series may be based off the mythology of this being, as it is said that the piken resembled bulls or oxen on occasion. * In John's visions of Lorien, he sees piken breathing fire. They do not do this on Earth, possibly due to the lower concentration of oxygen. It could also be another beast. * In ''I Am Number Four, John used his Legacy of Anima to convince the last piken on the battlefield to fight for him. However, it is never known what happened to this creature after the battle. ** This could be the same piken as seen in John's narration in The Power of Six, as the fate of that creature was never confirmed either, and it appeared to save the Garde by attacking the building. * Liren, Number Four's father, was the first Garde on Lorien depicted to be capable of killing a piken. * Number Six was the first Garde on Earth to kill a piken. * While in The Revenge of Seven, piken are seen leaping down from the warships and rampaging through cities, they are not seen in The Fate of Ten (excluding the Hunter). * The piken as described in the novels do not exist in the film adaptation. ** They appear to be smaller and less menacing, with a thinner frame and patagium, allowing them to fly and glide through the air. This gives the creatures in the film the appearance of an alien pterosaur rather than a mutant ox or bull. * While they are not confirmed to have died out after Victory Humanity Day, it would be very logical, as such large predators would have a difficulty consuming the necessary amount of sustenance. Category:Mogadorian Category:Setrákus Ra Category:I Am Number Four Category:Six's Legacy Category:The Power of Six Category:Nine's Legacy Category:The Fallen Legacies Category:The Lost Files: The Legacies Category:The Revenge of Seven Category:United As One